The Enforcer

Single mom’s no-nonsense approach helps tough area

July 13, 2012

ANTHONY, N.M. (AP) - The windows of her car have been smashed, juveniles have tried breaking into her apartment and she has been threatened by text message and to her face.

All, Blanca Hernandez says, because of her tough, no-nonsense approach to managing a sprawling, federally subsidized apartment complex in Anthony, a low-income town about 20 miles south of Las Cruces.

That approach, residents and law enforcement officials say, has turned around the environment on a 10-acre campus with nearly 500 apartments, including the Franklin Vista complex, where gang-related tagging and vandalism were once commonplace.

Article Photos

Blanca Hernandez walks by mailboxes in Anthony, N.M.

AP?photosBlanca Hernandez, from left, and Yvette Salgado, a site manager, talk to resident Francisca Cano in Anthony, N.M. For her efforts and tough, no-nonsense approach to managing a sprawling, federally subsidized apartment complex, the U.S. Department of Agriculture Rural Development office named Hernandez, a 28-year-old high school graduate and single mother of two girls, the 2012 Site Manager of the Year for New Mexico.

"At first there were a lot of gang members here in the apartments and they destroyed a lot of things. The past managers did not inspect the apartments each month and they did not listen to our petitions," wrote Maria Rodriguez, a tenant of the Franklin Vista apartment complex that abuts a cemetery, in a letter highlighting Hernandez's work. "Blanca is a kind-hearted person who always like(s) to help people and she has authority. Since she is the manager, everything here is in order and clean but also a safe place to live in."

For her efforts, the U.S. Department of Agriculture Rural Development office named Hernandez, a 28-year-old high school graduate and single mother of two girls, the 2012 Site Manager of the Year for New Mexico.

"It is evident that Blanca cares for her tenants as if they are her own family," USDA Rural Development State Director Terry Brunner said. Brunner called Hernandez "a true hero who protects her tenants by continually standing up to gang members whose only care in life is to cause trouble."

Friday evening, Hernandez and another staff member strolled the grounds - watching kids play, residents take walks - before everyone went inside to meet a 9 p.m. curfew.

Francisca Cano, who shares a three-bedroom apartment on an upper level at the complex with her two children, recalled a time, before Hernandez took over as manager, when it didn't feel as safe to be outside.

"Little things like regulating laundry room hours and imposing a curfew have made a big difference," the seven-year resident in her 40s said that same evening.

Hernandez, an Anthony native, had been working for an auto insurance company when, at the age of 23 in 2006, she was hired as an assistant manager for the Las Cruces-based J.L. Gray Company, which manages the affordable housing apartments. The daughter of parents who both work blue-collar jobs - her mother works at a chicken-processing plant in Santa Teresa - Hernandez said she could relate to the tenants.

"It was a challenge for me. It was something totally new," said Hernandez, a slight woman with a low-key presence who dresses neatly in black slacks and white blouses for work. She said she immediately took to the job.

"It's just kind of like who I am. Being able to help people, and whenever someone's struggling, creating a smile on their face. It's very rewarding," she said.

Hernandez, who lives across the street from the Franklin Vista apartments in another J.L. Gray-managed complex called Cimarron, was promoted to manager in 2009. Since then, Hernandez has enforced the company's policy of having "zero tolerance for drug and gang activity," according to J.L. Gray vice president J. Eric Fishburn.

Hernandez said she does not know how many residents she has evicted for breaking rules, such as any incidents of violence or crime, including tagging, or the possession of illegal drugs, but estimates the number is in the dozens.

If breaking the news of an eviction to the parents of a young person caught tagging the apartment complex with gang-related graffiti has ever been intimidating, Hernandez said she is careful not to show it.

"I try to explain to them as nicely as possible: You broke the rules; you gotta go," Hernandez said.

After some evictions, she received threatening text messages on her cellphone. Other juveniles challenged her to fight, in front of her two daughters, now 10 and 7.

According to a sheriff's department report, the rear window and a side window of her sedan were smashed in late 2009 while the car was parked at the complex.

Hernandez said her determination to run a tight ship was solidified after the fatal shooting of a resident shortly before she became head manager.

"That just made me realize, living here on-site with my kids, I don't want them growing up in what you'd call the projects. We're not the projects," Hernandez said. "Just because we're affordable housing doesn't mean they are going to be dirty, that there's going to be gangs, that we're going to allow graffiti or any kind of crime or drugs, especially drugs."

We're not. I want a place where kids aren't ashamed to say where they live."

Hernandez said that, while her management style was not universally embraced at first, now residents understand "that it's for their own good, not that I'm being mean."

Construction of the affordable housing development was financed with a USDA loan with a 1 percent interest rate. In addition, J.L. Gray is required to lease to low-income families whose portion of the rent is capped at 30 percent of their monthly income, the rest subsidized by USDA Rural Development, said Bobby Griffith, chief financial officer of J.L. Gray.

Incident reports from the Dona Ana County Sheriff's Department, and a letter of praise from the U.S. Marshals Service, show that Hernandez works closely with law enforcement.

The Franklin Vista apartments alone have had 112 calls for service from the sheriff's department since the start of 2011.

In recent years, J.L. Gray has increased outdoor lighting around the buildings, installed security cameras and erected a fence around the entire development. The maintenance staff paints over graffiti on a weekly basis and keeps the grounds looking clean and well-groomed.

Sgt. John Palmer, a patrol supervisor in the Dona Ana County Sheriff's Department's Anthony substation, said that since Hernandez has been site manager of the Franklin Vista apartments there has been a "dramatic decrease" in calls for service.

Griffith said that while the company's infrastructure improvements have been important, Hernandez's role has been critical. "It takes more than cameras. It takes people to do the job," Griffith said. "You've got to do something about it. . I think the sky's the limit for her."

About 1,700 residents live in the nearly 500 apartments Hernandez oversees for J.L. Gray, meaning Hernandez is the landlord for almost one-fifth of the 9,360 residents in the young town that was incorporated just two years ago.

About a year ago, Hernandez began enforcing the 9 p.m. curfew on residents, meaning that apartment dwellers are not allowed after that hour to gather at picnic tables and the playground is closed. Some residents chafed at the rule at first, but others now call to report suspicious activity outside during the curfew, Hernandez said.

"It's not that we are doing it because I don't want people outside," Hernandez said. "It's for their own safety."

She said residents are not routinely evicted for violating the curfew but they are reminded to get inside. She added, "If there's a pattern with one tenant, we do something about it."

Hernandez knows when the curfew is violated because she and her staff walk the grounds nightly, keeping an eye out for problems - just as they did Friday, on a 95-degree evening.

Hernandez paid attention to even the smallest of things out of place: closing an opened mailbox for a resident or picking up a plastic soda bottle dropped by a car.

Smiling, she said buenas tardes to tenants who passed by.

Maria De Jesus Arreola has lived at the complex for 13 years. It's a place she raised five daughters; a place she calls home.

She remembers when living conditions there weren't as safe as they are today, and she recognized the hard work Hernandez has done to transform the setting into a safer one - adding that she likes to help Hernandez by keeping an eye out for anything suspicious.

"I love this place," the woman in her 50s said on Friday. "I'll never leave."